Book review: Queer and Trans Fashion Brands

I don’t know what I expected from this book, but it’s surprisingly academically in-depth. I am not a scholar of fashion (although I briefly aspired to be, like 30 years ago), but I find academic analysis of dress & adornment generally fascinating & pleasurable to read about. As such, I’m about to nerd out talking about this title

Kelly L. Reddy‑Best’s Queer and Trans Fashion Brands: Resistance and Revolution in the 21st Century examines the emergence and impact of queer‑ and trans‑focused fashion brands in North America through the lived experiences of 25 fashion entrepreneurs. 

Centering fashion as a means of identity exploration and cultural production, the book positions these brands as responses to systemic exclusion within the dominant Western fashion paradigm. Reddy‑Best argues that queer and trans fashion enterprises are not niche trends but deliberate challenges to heteronormative ideals in sizing, design, retail environments, and visual culture, viewing fashion as both personal expression and political practice. 

The book is grounded in an intersectional feminist framework that examines how gender identity intersects with race, class, embodiment, and capitalism. Reddy‑Best situates contemporary queer and trans fashion within broader historical and political contexts, tracing how dress functions as a mechanism of regulation as well as resistance. 

By examining production, distribution, legislation, and consumption, the book demonstrates how these brands navigate and contest the contradictions of operating within capitalist systems while simultaneously resisting assimilation, commodified “pride,” and depoliticized representations of queer identity. 

Ultimately, Queer and Trans Fashion Brands contributes to fashion studies and queer studies by expanding the field’s understanding of value, labor, and innovation beyond profit‑driven models. Reddy‑Best presents queer and trans fashion brands as agents of social change that create community, visibility, and care while preserving marginalized fashion histories often excluded from mainstream archives. 

The book argues for recognizing these enterprises as revolutionary cultural forces whose significance lies not only in garments produced, but in the social worlds, networks, and futures they actively imagine and represent. 

The 204-page book includes over 40 full color illustrations, a foreword by Sonny Oram, founding editor of Qwear Fashion, & includes quotes from the numerous interviews the author conducted with the brainchilds of these brands. My one quibble is with the blurb on the back cover printed in hot pink text on aqua, which I am unable to read due to a vision disability.